


Overload

by Iron



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers - IDW2
Genre: Chromia Loves Her Son, Discrimination Against Disabled People, Gen, Life Isn’t Fair, Prowl is Disabled, Prowl is a Good Son, Sensory Overload, Windblade Just Wants The Best For Him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iron/pseuds/Iron
Summary: Prowl deals with sensory overload. Windblade and Chromia discuss his future.—Prowl Week Day 4: “Sensory”
Relationships: Chromia&Prowl, Chromia&Windblade
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34
Collections: Prowl Week





	Overload

He could hear the mechs in the office across the street. A party or something, music playing, people talking. Most days it was a murmur he could almost ignore, but they were louder today. _So much louder_. 

Prowl lays his forehead against the desk, trying and failing to dial down his audial input. He wants to screen as Barricade, cooped up in the office next door with a broken leg strut and the last half-vorn’s worth of datawork, starts humming under his breath. 

Fingers, cold as ice, brush the back of his neck. It feels like someone’s jamming a spike straight into his brain module. “Kid...” Chromia whispers, crouching down next to his desk. “You didn’t say it’d gotten this bad.” 

He almost starts to cry as the raps of her voice becomes a physical sensation, scraping against the insides of his audials, piercing the insides of his brain. Inside, he flares his wings hard enough to knock her away from him, even though the bare sensation of the air passing over his wings - let alone the harsh _bang_ of his right wing against her frame. It’s agony. 

Chromia is smart enough to not try to get back into his space; she inches around the room, pulling curtains closed and disposing of the trash receptacle outside his door. Something clicks on, a soft, almost pleasant hum filling the room. The smell of xyzyl bromide fills his office, delicate and uncomplicated, masking the sour, complicated stench that usually lingers in the office. She sets the fan next, letting the low hum of its spinning motors fill the room. The constant, steady pressure of the air moving over his doorwings is pleasant, easing the aching vibration of people walking through the building, of engines humming on the other sides of walls, of the sheer noise of existence on Cybertron. 

He slumps on top of his desk, engine switching gears back down to an idle. His doorwings lower slowly. The taste of his own mouth is still making him want to purge, the smell of the unscented polish of his frame is giving him a helm ache, the rumble of his engine making his fingers go numb. 

All Chromia has done is made it a little more bearable, but that’s all he needs. 

She turns the lights off as she leaves his office, and Prowl can’t help his relief. 

— 

Chromia slumps her way into Windblade’s office, shoulder hiked up around her helm. “It happened again. He didn’t even comm me to help him set up his office. I don’t know if he won’t, or if...” 

“If he can’t.” Windblade looks up from her datapad. “Prowl suffering from sensory overload again?” 

“ _Yes_ , and I can’t convince him to let me put a sensory deprivation chamber in his office.” 

Windblade sighs. “He doesn’t want to feel different from the rest of the new officers. It only happens once or twice a month, he’s young, these likely aren’t permanent. Once he learns how to calibrate his sensors properly -“ 

“We both know that a mech making it this long without knowing how to do that means he _won’t_ learn how to do it. We need to start figuring out how to help him through it!” 

“And if we go forward with your plan, we potentially brand Prowl as a problem officer. I feel for him. That’s why I don’t want to limit his options in the future.” 

“Things have changed since you came up -“ 

“Not that much. Not enough. I want to protect him, Chromia, just as much as you do. I want to see him be the great detective he _could_ be, if given the chance. Once we ask for those accommodations, his future is *done*.” 

“It isn’t fair.” 

“I know. I’ll do what I can to make things easier while he’s in the precinct, but that’s... that’s all I can do.” 

— 

Chromia’ s there when the lights come up, with a cube of light energon cut through with clean oil and a heat pack for his aching doorwing joints, and he’s never been so relieved to see her. “I’m fine. You don’t need to treat me like a new spark so much.” 

“I’m just here to make sure you can function at your best.” 

“I was fine.” 

She touches the top of his helm gently. “I know. And I know you’ll always be fine.” _I’ll make sure of it._


End file.
